YACO

YACO – Yet Another Clock Overlay

When I watch streams or use any other fullscreen app, I miss the clock and – as the tablet is a few years old now – also the battery state. So I searched for an app which “overlays” the screen with a transparent window and a small area with the information I wanted.

There are some overlay apps around, of course. But too complicated (for my purpose), some randomly crash or disappear, or use more CPU load than I would like to give them. So it was: DO IT YOURSELF. Trivial, minimal invasive. Only a few options.

Basically, it’s simple.

It should be.

But as soon as you think something like this, you notice it’s non-trivial. Good intentions (of Google’s Android developers) are the stumbling stones in the way (*). The (transparent) overlay was no problem, but as soon as YACO ran under Android 5 (Marshmallow) and higher, and an app asked for important permissions, there was a window “screen overlay detected” or such, without mentioning which app caused the overlay. Numerous Web pages are written around this subject, having no solution.

Duh. A good idea, but it should tell the user WHICH APP is causing this. Otherwise, when he finds out (by uninstalling/disabling the app or searching the web), he’ll be angry at the developer, who is perfectly innocent. The first time it appeared it took me some time that it was my own app (though I did not scorn at myself…).

My solution: YACO has a notification tray entry with which you can disable the screen overlay for 5 minutes. So once you see that “Screen overlay detected” message, just open the navigation drawer, disable YACO and continue. YACO will re-appear after a few minutes.

Version 1.1 has included a new feature: you can enable the app as ‘accessibility’ app, which means it can monitor the activities and switch off the overlay so that it does not block the permission confirmations. The downside is that you need to trust me not to use the data I could collect (monitor active package), but I promise I do not use it except to disable or enable the overlay window, and that information is neither stored nor sent anywhere (except in the log file for program processing information that you can send me in case of a program malfunction).

(*) I have my share with my Kitty Timer app and Personal Sunrise Alarm Clock. Both apps did or do suffer due to limitations the Android developers add to fight system (ab)usage with timers in order to reduce battery usage.